


Mama

by GuileandGall



Series: Violaceous Fury [39]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 11:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9547217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: Summary: Losing her mother turned Furia’s world upside down.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: This piece was inspired by a quote from a film I watched on a lark.

**Mama**

_No one worries about you like your mother. And when she_ _’s gone, the world seems unsafe. You can’t turn to her anymore and it changes your life. Forever._ — Big Stone Gap

The deep tones of the organ echoed off the stone of the church. Furia pulled the ribbon from the bow tied around her waist out of Memo’s grip. With a little pop of her hip, she adjusted her grip on Gabe. The baby was getting antsy.

 _Why do we have to do this?_ She wondered, silently this time. Her aunt had lectured her for twenty minutes when she dared voice that question out loud. This felt far too much like a parade, and Furia didn’t feel like prancing after her mother’s coffin. She didn’t want all those people staring at her, expecting to see her crying.

She chewed at her bottom lip. When Gabe finally settled down and laid his head against her shoulder, Furia rotated back and forth a little less dramatically trying to help him completely fall asleep. The dark wood, with brass fixtures, was draped with white roses—her mama’s favorite. She always told Furia she loved the way the petals swirled and rippled when the blooms were full. _At least these are all full_ , she thought as the sting stabbed in her throat again.

It left her wishing she might just cry, but when her aunt tapped her on the other shoulder, the feeling faded. Furia held her hand out and waved Memo and the others in front of her. She knew there was no chance that she’d be able to get out of this display of sorrow.

The smooth music of the organ broke with the sound of more than fifty people getting to their feet. She peeked past her brothers and sister, at the faces beyond the broad shoulders of her uncles who carried her mother’s coffin to the altar of the church. With a quiet sigh, she pressed her lips to the top of Gabe’s head, burying her nose in his soft, black curls for a moment.

A sigh of relief escaped her again when the processional reached front of the church. Furia sat up straight in the pew, shifting Gabe a little so that his short, chunky legs draped over her own. Her baby brother turned out to be her reprieve from the show of grief that became her mother’s funeral. She rocked him; it comforted her as much as it seemed to work on him. He’d been upset and barely able to sleep for days, always whining for Mama, one of the few words he really knew.

Of course, she’d felt similarly, even more so after her grandparents told her she could have her mother’s old room—all to herself. It was less of an offer and more of a morbid decree, a somber reminder that she was all her siblings had left.

***

The house finally fell quiet. Her relatives all retreated to their own homes. Her brothers and sisters had fallen asleep from the exhaustion and emotion of the day, even Gabe. Tio Antonio, her cousin Miguel, and her grandfather took it upon themselves to move Furia’s clothes and the few things she called her own into the room that had been her mother’s.

Standing in the doorway, she chewed at the corner of her mouth. Her fingers stroked over the pattern carved into the gold cross her mother had given her a few months earlier when she’d been confirmed at the same altar where the same priest performed her mother’s funeral.

Despite it all, her mother had always been the one person Furia could talk to. Even after she got sick, and could barely get out of bed, Furia could still turn to her. Even in her grandparent’s house, surrounded by her siblings, standing at the threshold of that room where all those long talks happened, she felt all alone. Like no one could ever know or understand her again.

“Mija.” Her grandmother’s voice pulled her out of her head.

In a rush, Furia stood up straight, tucking the cross back under the collar of her black dress. “Sí, abuelita,” she replied, pulling her hands behind her back as she turned to face the shorter woman.

“You need to get some rest, Soledad.”

Furia’s lips pursed, and she nodded. “I will. I just …” Her eyes fell toward the room. “Shouldn’t we let the twins have a room? I don’t mind sleeping with the babies. That way if they wake up someone’s there.”

Her grandmother gave her the same kind of look her mother did. “Soledad, you’re twelve. You’re a young lady now,” she said, ushering her into the room. “Besides, why do you think your grandfather was moving his office?”

Furia shrugged. A few weeks earlier her Yayo had been boxing up his books and storing them in the old garage, though no one really told her why.

“We were going to move your mama downstairs. It was going to make things easier on all of us. I don’t do so well with the stairs as I used to,” Maria said, laughing like it was a secret. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the reluctant girl down beside her. “Your mama wanted you to have a room of your own. Said you were too old to be sharing a room with the little ones.”

Furia stared at the pattern in the nap of the rug under her feet, while her grandmother held onto one of her hands still. “Really?” she asked quietly, her grandmother patted the back of her hand. Furia didn’t know how she felt about that. Regardless, it was still her mother’s room. It still felt weird, probably would feel strange even if her mother hadn’t passed.

“It was going to be a surprise, for your birthday. She wanted to tie a big ribbon around the door.” Maria’s voice cracked, and the patting stopped. Tugging the lace handkerchief out of her sleeve, she dabbed at her eyes. “She had it all planned. Yayo and Antonio were going to move everything while you were at school so that you wouldn’t know. They already put in to take the time off. Your mama made them; she wanted you to have one nice surprise.”

Furia understood what that meant. For years now, she had played Santa and the Easter Bunny, even the Tooth Fairy for her siblings, and herself. She wrapped and hid everyone’s gifts, including her own since her mother took to the bed. And she told herself she didn’t mind at all, because she wanted to help, needed to help; after all, she was the oldest, it was expected.

“Abuelita, I miss her.”

“I know. You will. I still miss my mama,” she admitted, squeezing that handkerchief tightly in her hands as she pressed a kiss to Furia’s hand. “But it will get easier.”

Furia nodded. She didn’t know if she wanted it to get easier. What she wanted was to have her mother back. To have her healthy. To have her walk her to school and be standing there at the end of the day with a huge smile and a big hug. She wanted to have her sitting in the middle of the couch reading a story to all of them. To be able to lay her head in her mama’s lap and have her pet her hair as they talked about whatever.

“I know,” Furia finally mumbled.

Her grandmother got to her feet, Furia steadying her arm to help her up. She took the girl’s face in her hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead at her hairline. “Buenas noches, mija. Get some good sleep.”

Again, she nodded, and her grandmother hobbled out of the room, favoring her bad leg, then closed the door behind her.

Furia pressed her hand against the blanket. It was new, not the one her mother used. She wondered if her mother had been the one to pick it out, though that was doubtful. Despite the new covers, the bed had been her mother’s. It was where her mother died. With that thought, Furia shot to her feet and backed away from it. Instead, she dropped into the rocking chair in the corner.

 _How can they expect me to sleep here? To take_ her _room? Really! What are they be thinking?_ She stared at the bed, then around the room before pressing her face into her hands.

“God, why couldn’t you take anyone else? Why her?” she mumbled into her palms. She knew she couldn’t scream like she wanted. She couldn’t shake her fist at the sky and curse God for taking the one person she felt like she had in the world. So, she folded in half, curling up in that chair … in a room that wasn’t hers and sobbed into the pillow she’d sewn and given to her mother last Mother’s Day.

Who would care about her day now? Listen to her worries about school? Care about her dreams? Encourage her through her failures?

“I want my mama,” she whimpered into the lacy ruffles of the pillow.


End file.
